Happy Birthday: Christopher McDonald

Christopher McDonald

Born: February 15, 1955 in New York City, New York, USA

[2011, on Requiem for a Dream (2000)] Yeah, that was a very interesting movie. Talk about great filmmakers, Darren Aronofsky is arguably in a league of his own. He’s terrific. It’s an insane movie. The first time I saw the movie, it was in Cannes with the whole group–we’d rented a house together–and it was the midnight screening. Everybody’s in tuxes, we go in, and it was an eight-minute standing ovation afterwards. I looked over at Darren . . . at one point in the film–he’s two seats away–and I’m going, “Are you kidding me?” He goes, “Oh, no, it gets better!” Or worse, however you look at it. It’s a dark movie with a very, very strong anti-drug message. It had more edits in it than any film before or after. They just went to town on it. Beautifully shot by Matty Libatique. Just very groundbreaking. I did all my stuff in New York in about six days, maybe four days. A lot of my stuff was ad-libbed. I met Darren . . . in his little walk-up apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, and we shot these interviews up on the roof, and we’d shoot interviews of me walking down the street talking, and people would recognize me from one of my past films, and I’d go right into Tappy Tibbons. He had three things: no meat, no sugar, and the third one you never really know. But he started a website, and people were gonna go in and be like, “What’s the third one?” I think it’s “no orgasms,” personally. Makes sense, right? So, yeah, that was a great experience. I still see Darren from time to time. He’s just getting better and better and better. The Wrestler (2008) was absolutely spectacular, and Black Swan (2010)? Come on. Just great stuff.

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